Yeah... I read it too fast, thought I saw "buy a lot more" instead of "spend a lot on", and proceeded to say a bunch of other dumb stuff:) There's not much accounting for what I can say after serious sleep deprivation... (I know, excuses, escuses;)
But anyway, what really made me fly into a rage was the notion that we must depend on MS office and that opensource office products aren't worth shit. At least, noting my lack of acountability, that was the implication I percieved:) I have only a meager Athlon 750 that I've been using with abiword for quite some time and I've had no problem persiting without MS office. I've actually never messed with openoffice, but I've used Koffice from time to time and have no complaints other than the occasional crash, and the fact that it didn't read some MS excel sheet someone sent me once (but it was a while ago, perhaps they've fixed it, gnumeric works just fine for me). Before that I used to run wordperfect for linux; first on a pentium 90 and then on a k6-2 400, and I never had any problems (though I know that's not opensource).
Because word is the world standard for written documents in the professional business world.
I work for OSU's CIS department and at times I also get word documents given to me . Abiword handles them just fine, but that's beside the point: Why is it that people feel the need to send something meant to be read in an editable format? I mean, people who I would think would know better send me word documents. I wouldn't know this being that I havn't touched word in a very long time, but is it all that difficult to make a pdf from a word document?
They will need to spend a lot on ram and processors to be able to run Openoffice
I'm guessing you mean faster processors. It doesn't take SMP to run openoffice. But hey, what do you expect from a troll, intelligence? bah!
or they could use koffice which isn't compatible with anything
It's compatible with more than koffice. Word isn't compatible with much other than word. If Koffice is all you're using, why the fuck do you need it to support word?
Compare a small 1/4" long 3 inch deep incision to a 4-5" cut + chest spreader that most operations require and compare which method causes more trauma to the body, I think this stem cell/cathador technique wins hands down.
My friend is a nurse in training. He said he recently observed open-heart surgery. He described to me how they had to yank staples out of this guys chest, like, bracing their feet against the bed and YANKING! And then came the saw... He told me blood and other junk was flying out of the guy, and that the smell of burning flesh from constantly coterizing the wounds was nearly unbearable... People say they feel like they've been hit by a truck after waking up... I deliver drugs in the hospital and it always creeps me out to go to open-heart recovery... everyone looks like a zombie.
Wheras this catheter business is practically out-patient surgery. My friend's dad just had a simmilar operation (minus the stem cells:) and was out of the hospital in 2 days. Definately a step in the right direction!
Religion creates a self-consistent view of the world and history. However unlikely and construed this world view is, science cannot disprove this world view because it is self-consistent (i.e. all inconsistencies are explained away by saying that is what God willed).
The notion of an all-powerfull being does not a consistent world make! Don't you watch the simpsons?
Homer: "Could God microwave a burrito SO hot, that He himself could not eat it?"
This outlines a contradiction in the all-powerful-being explanation. If god can do anything, then god can make something undestroyable by anyone including himself. If god can do anything, then god can also destroy this thing. BOOM! contradiction!
Either way, if a religious argument is one not based on observations but rather information passed from someone else, then there is another serious problem:
Let's assume you have an arbitrary but consistent explanation for how the universe was created (that is, you have no evidence for your proposal, so it is a religious argument). I propose that the set of all of these explanations is infinitely large. Given that, independant of all other factors, the probability of any one of these explanations being correct approaches zero, making it impossible to guess. This makes evidence necesary to even consider a theory for how the universe was created.
Now is there an infinite number of specific explanations? There are additive properties to any explanation, such as it took x years to create the earth, or whatever. You'll have to keep generalizing on your theory in order to get a FINITE probability that your theory is correct. I can't prove this yet, but I would guess that generalizing that much would probably meet the definition of agnostic (since the trend is heading this way as you remove all stringency and specificity from a system)
Basically, you can't prove a consistent argument wrong, but you can prove that there's absolutely no reason to believe in it.
The fact that supporters of an argument cannot formulate their beliefs in terms of scientific principles does nothing to prove or disprove their beliefs.
Descartes said "I think; therefore I am.". If you want to get right down to it, this is the only thing you can prove about the universe. Everything other than your existence could be an illusion. Therefore we have to make some assumptions if we're going to carry on with life, such as, if I walk outside of my house I won't be eaten by invisible monsters. However, the only reasonable assumptions you can make are those based off of your observations and logic. So, you can certainly say that religious people are misguided.
I could make several other sociological arguments against religion, but I think I'll cut this here before I get completely off-topic... I feel myself slipping into rant-mode...
"Occasionally" and "mistakenly" are both adverbs. Stylistic suggestion: "...people occasionally using 'its' instead of 'it's' by mistake...."
I would prefer "on occasion". Please collect your gold star at the teacher's desk.
You missed the relevant error: "its" and "it's" should be transposed.
Also, you may want to insert commas when beginning a sentence with an adverb such as "also" or "actually."
Actually, that wasn't me.
I'm surprised you didn't note that I shouldn't begin sentences with prepositions, or my improper use of the word "even".
What, I don't get a "70% Funny" like the original poster?
No, because your post isn't funny. It's just a bunch of nitpicking in what I can only assume is an attempt at irony. The gist of my post is that nitpicking over grammar is pedantic. You nitpicked my grammar. That's not funny, it's missing the point. It would have been ironic if I had been stating that grammar was important while making those mistakes.
We can mock the poor but we can't make light of someone who has not mastered his native language?
Oh shit, I failed the authoritative "Permission-Denied English Mastery Test". Now how will I get into grad-school?
For discussion: have you ever visited a casino (especially towards the first of the month)?
nope.
How do we solve the problem of getting the elderly off of Social Security?
I'll let you know after I master my native language. I'm not sure I have the grammar to attempt such a feat.
How exactly does making fun of welfare recipients "approach the problem of getting people off of welfare?"
hmmm, ask a stupid rhetorical question and... well... I'll go back to being a smart-ass:)
I drew that implication, using your reasoning as the premise, as a joke to make fun of you. My thinking went like this:
This guy stated: You make fun of welfare recipients yet you can't spell "its."
This is a cut if misspelling "it's" puts you on, at best, equal ground with someone on welfare and thus implies that you are not in a position to criticize a person on welfare. Therefore, given that this person isn't making this post for absolutely no reason, they must be assuming that this premise is true.
OK, this guy seems to think that he can make this person look dumb with this reasoning. I disagree, so as a joke, I shall further and exaggerate this line of reasoning.
[magnitude_of_problem(spelling errors) >= magnitude_of_problem(being on welfare)] implies [importance_of_solving_problem(spelling errors) >= importance_of_solving_problem(being on welfare)]
OK, now I'll just come up with an amusing way to make this into english to discredit his reasoning, 'cause I'm really sick of this kinda (spelling == accountability) crap
Does that help answer your question? I wasn't too far of with my assumptions, was I?
You make fun of welfare recipients yet you can't spell "its."
That's right! Before we even approach the problem of getting people off of welfare, we need to correct the problem of people occasionally mistakenly using "its" instead of "it's"; for that is the real problem facing America!
spell-checked to avoid the pedantic nit-pickings of spelling/grammar-nazis
Sorry, but your skills in spelling the word "competent" won't get you very far in this market. There just isn't as much of a demand for a professional "competent" speller as there used to be.
only 20 boxes of mac & cheese? I'm a college student and I sure as hell don't buy that kind of extravagant mac & cheese. Kroger regularly puts its "kroger brand" mac & cheese on sale for 25 cents a box!
I suppose I should answer in kind with arbitrary insults, so fuck you. Or maybe "get a dictionary":) At least try not to be a troll.
and stop calling copywrite infringement "Piracy"
People know what I mean when I say piracy in respect to digital media. They know I'm talking about unauthorized copying. Are you telling me that I'm actually conveying a different message? If you thought I was trying to say "taking a copy and destroying the original" then you're in a small minority of fucking idiots who can't remove ambiguity from english.
You need to look at the flip-side of this, which is, it's not piracy, unless the original copy is gone.
Perhaps in your very narrow definition of the term. Maybe this is what the term meant 50 years ago, but not anymore. The only meaning words have is that which the listener assigns them. Just about everyone who read "piracy" in my original post knew exactly what type of events I was describing.
Hell, even websters dictionary agrees with me, read the 3rd definition.
Main Entry: piracy Pronunciation: 'pI-r&-sE Function: noun Inflected Form(s): plural -cies
Etymology: Medieval Latin piratia, from Late Greek peirateia, from Greek peiratEs pirate Date: 1537 1 : an act of robbery on the high seas; also : an act resembling such robbery 2 : robbery on the high seas 3 : the unauthorized use of another's production, invention, or conception especially in infringement of a copyright
gee whiz, pa! Words have more than one definition!
So, you only underline my point in my previous post. We don't need idiotic, leap-before-you-look zealots who makes anyone supporting fair-use look like a bunch of assholes. You're like the hippies of the anti-war movment. There's a difference between ranting and raving and actually presenting reasoned arguments. That goes for slashdot as well as your own personal thinking. I believe that we will have no legitimacy in the fight for fair-use unless we stick to well-reasoned arguments, and not pull this I-can't-even-read-a-dictionary bullshit, for nearly no reason at all.
No, John Cage does
on
Soundless Music?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Ever since I started college, my grandmother never fails to cut out the dave barry column and send it to me
And if this were digital media, it would most likely be ILLEGAL under the DMCA or other such bassackwards legislation.
Actually, his grandmother gave up her original copy. Perhaps if she made a photocopy of the column and sent it, it would be analagous.
Fair use is only under attack because people abuse it. If there was mass photocopying of newspapers, there might become a corporate-lobbying stink about it. With digital media, piracy has become rampant. I agree that fair use rights are necessary, but I dispute your claim that this granny-clipping-newspaper-ads situation is at all simmilar to our current fair-use of digital media troubles. Please don't take this personally, but I feel that these knee-jerk reactions are really contributing to getting us nowhere on this front and sapping our argument of legitamacy.
I agree, but security is one thing. I think actively spying on someone is different. Our standard for how much we're going to respect a human being's privacy is different depending on whether that human being is inside of the U.S. or not. Trust is one thing, but we're the aggressors in this case, so I think it might be different. Or perhaps you're right, you do have a good point. I think it's more that I tend to ignore the "state" issue all-together. It has become my knee-jerk reaction to do so ever since nationalism exploded post 9/11.
In most of the world we call different standards for different classifications "different standards".
Not double standards.
Uh... not in my "most of the world". Not in Webster's Dictionary's "most of the world" either:
Main Entry: double standard
Function: noun
Date: 1894
a set of principles that applies differently and usually more rigorously to one group of people or circumstances than to another; especially : a code of morals that applies more severe standards of sexual behavior to women than to men
One group would be americans, another group would be foreigners. Double means you have two specific standards and the contradiction is when you purport them to be general.
How is it any different from correcting or offering a dissenting opinion?
Because you can get fired from your job for saying the "Un-PC" statement.
What kind of "Un-PC" statement can you get fired for, exactly? Any? Be careful how you classify things. I highly doubt you could get fired for somethign like this trail of tears analogy, I assume what you ARE talking about is sexual harrasment or calling your co-worker a nigger or something like that. In which case, you obviously lack the ability to imagine yourself in someone elses position. The reason people don't want assholes harrasing female co-workers is because it's very hard for someone to be productive when they are belittled constantly by someone historically handed a dominant position. You think it doesn't still happen today? If so, you obviously have never faced consequences of this shit, but it dosen't mean others don't. There's a difference between "being PC" and making someone's life hell. It's the difference between being an ass and harassment.
With Political Correctness, you are no more free than the citizens of Communist Russia. here you couldn't speak your mind because you might end up in prison. Here, it's a slightly different story. You can't speak your mind (or even make a mistake in speech) without being crucified by society
We're not talking about cencership laws here, actually, the right to give your opinion!!! If you're not even allowed to feel offended then we're MUCH worse off then communist russia! Slightly different than prison? I hear people saying "un-pc" stuff all the time and nothing ever happens to them. There's a difference between not being PC and threatening or harassing someone.
As for the "mistake in a speech getting you cruicified", I must assume you're speaking of our friend Trent Lott. I bet you think I applauded what happened after his slip about how all of our "problems" would have been solved by having a dixie-crat president during the push for civil-rights? Actually, I thought it was blown out of proportion, but jesus, what kind of standard do you expect for the SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE?!?!! Your image does matter there. This isn't getting fired from your job or some other bullshit you mentioned. It's "not getting promoted to one of the most powerful positions in the country", and it was the republicans that pulled him out (mostly because he was a big liability anyway, this was just a good excuse)
Can anyone tell me how all this shit got to the rediculous level it is at right now? We have some froppish, underfed, vegetarian, neo-leftist leech telling the people of America which words are appropriate and which ones aren't! It is 100% pure, unadulturated bullshit, and you all know it.
Who exactly are you talking to? You just made about 80 ridiculous assumptions about me. I probably hate hippies even more than you do since people so often lump me together with those zealotous megolomaniacs.
All that aside, PC speech doesn't really fit into things of a really sensitive nature. It takes a lot of balls and insensitivity to make jokes about the holocaust, mostly because it just wasn't funny. The Trail of Tears was also a very serious matter, and thus should only be used when referring to the actual event.
I agree 100%
Now, persuasive speech promotes the use of extremes, but that's where common sense comes into play. If there's a guy who doesn't have enough sense not to name a computer configuration article after an event that stands for unjust death, an informing of the seriousness is in order.
Still agreeing
It is inappropriate, however, to censor him, axe the article, or socially crucify him.
hmm? I said that? I hope you're just adding in a point and not accusing me of this, cause that's basically the opposite of what I was trying to say.
However, why does everyone have to be sensitive to everything that might offend anyone?
I don't know about all situations, but some assholes sailing over to your country and making you march to your death doesn't seem that comparable to the hassle of setting up open-office. So why is mentioning the significance of the trail of tears a bad thing? At worst, someone gets educated.
I find the political correctness thing is now as bad as censorship
How is it any different from correcting or offering a dissenting opinion? People are allowed to voice their opinion about things, even about what speech they find offensive. By your logic, critique is censorship just because people will be afraid of being critiqued and therefore not speak. That's BS. You're responsible for the things you say, whether you like it or not.
I'm sure one day some PC guy will come along and ask us not to use C because controllers written in C were used in some bomber aircrafts (or something like that)
Well then that PC guy is a moron and we can all laugh at him (allong with any cowards who actually bend to his will). It's a far cry from pointing out a comparison between installing OSS and mass-murder. Don't oversimplyfy political correctness. You're just as bad as the "PC freaks" you malign.
I kinda agree with you about opensource games, at least, open-source games that tons of people are working on. A large group seems to suck all the creativity out of a game, but why are you bashing Parsec so soon? They JUST made their game opensource today. It hasn't failed yet. I'm kind of skeptical, but I'm willing to give it a chance. Hell, I'm considering joining the project.
Slashdot Mirror
Touche, troll. Touche
:) There's not much accounting for what I can say after serious sleep deprivation... (I know, excuses, escuses ;)
:) I have only a meager Athlon 750 that I've been using with abiword for quite some time and I've had no problem persiting without MS office. I've actually never messed with openoffice, but I've used Koffice from time to time and have no complaints other than the occasional crash, and the fact that it didn't read some MS excel sheet someone sent me once (but it was a while ago, perhaps they've fixed it, gnumeric works just fine for me). Before that I used to run wordperfect for linux; first on a pentium 90 and then on a k6-2 400, and I never had any problems (though I know that's not opensource).
Yeah... I read it too fast, thought I saw "buy a lot more" instead of "spend a lot on", and proceeded to say a bunch of other dumb stuff
But anyway, what really made me fly into a rage was the notion that we must depend on MS office and that opensource office products aren't worth shit. At least, noting my lack of acountability, that was the implication I percieved
Because word is the world standard for written documents in the professional business world.
I work for OSU's CIS department and at times I also get word documents given to me . Abiword handles them just fine, but that's beside the point: Why is it that people feel the need to send something meant to be read in an editable format? I mean, people who I would think would know better send me word documents. I wouldn't know this being that I havn't touched word in a very long time, but is it all that difficult to make a pdf from a word document?
They will need to spend a lot on ram and processors to be able to run Openoffice
I'm guessing you mean faster processors. It doesn't take SMP to run openoffice. But hey, what do you expect from a troll, intelligence? bah!
or they could use koffice which isn't compatible with anything
It's compatible with more than koffice. Word isn't compatible with much other than word. If Koffice is all you're using, why the fuck do you need it to support word?
Compare a small 1/4" long 3 inch deep incision to a 4-5" cut + chest spreader that most operations require and compare which method causes more trauma to the body, I think this stem cell/cathador technique wins hands down.
:) and was out of the hospital in 2 days. Definately a step in the right direction!
My friend is a nurse in training. He said he recently observed open-heart surgery. He described to me how they had to yank staples out of this guys chest, like, bracing their feet against the bed and YANKING! And then came the saw... He told me blood and other junk was flying out of the guy, and that the smell of burning flesh from constantly coterizing the wounds was nearly unbearable... People say they feel like they've been hit by a truck after waking up... I deliver drugs in the hospital and it always creeps me out to go to open-heart recovery... everyone looks like a zombie.
Wheras this catheter business is practically out-patient surgery. My friend's dad just had a simmilar operation (minus the stem cells
Religion creates a self-consistent view of the world and history. However unlikely and construed this world view is, science cannot disprove this world view because it is self-consistent (i.e. all inconsistencies are explained away by saying that is what God willed).
The notion of an all-powerfull being does not a consistent world make! Don't you watch the simpsons?
Homer: "Could God microwave a burrito SO hot, that He himself could not eat it?"
This outlines a contradiction in the all-powerful-being explanation. If god can do anything, then god can make something undestroyable by anyone including himself. If god can do anything, then god can also destroy this thing. BOOM! contradiction!
Either way, if a religious argument is one not based on observations but rather information passed from someone else, then there is another serious problem:
Let's assume you have an arbitrary but consistent explanation for how the universe was created (that is, you have no evidence for your proposal, so it is a religious argument). I propose that the set of all of these explanations is infinitely large. Given that, independant of all other factors, the probability of any one of these explanations being correct approaches zero, making it impossible to guess. This makes evidence necesary to even consider a theory for how the universe was created.
Now is there an infinite number of specific explanations? There are additive properties to any explanation, such as it took x years to create the earth, or whatever. You'll have to keep generalizing on your theory in order to get a FINITE probability that your theory is correct. I can't prove this yet, but I would guess that generalizing that much would probably meet the definition of agnostic (since the trend is heading this way as you remove all stringency and specificity from a system)
Basically, you can't prove a consistent argument wrong, but you can prove that there's absolutely no reason to believe in it.
The fact that supporters of an argument cannot formulate their beliefs in terms of scientific principles does nothing to prove or disprove their beliefs.
Descartes said "I think; therefore I am.". If you want to get right down to it, this is the only thing you can prove about the universe. Everything other than your existence could be an illusion. Therefore we have to make some assumptions if we're going to carry on with life, such as, if I walk outside of my house I won't be eaten by invisible monsters. However, the only reasonable assumptions you can make are those based off of your observations and logic. So, you can certainly say that religious people are misguided.
I could make several other sociological arguments against religion, but I think I'll cut this here before I get completely off-topic... I feel myself slipping into rant-mode...
hmmm, maybe this is just known to we osu cis students on slashdot ;)
haha, beat ya to it ;)
Though I bet you were writing this as at the same time I was. I'm suprised no one else mentioned this sooner.
Why don't they just use the Crackpot Index to judge them?
"Occasionally" and "mistakenly" are both adverbs. Stylistic suggestion: "...people occasionally using 'its' instead of 'it's' by mistake...."
I would prefer "on occasion". Please collect your gold star at the teacher's desk.
You missed the relevant error: "its" and "it's" should be transposed.
Also, you may want to insert commas when beginning a sentence with an adverb such as "also" or "actually."
Actually, that wasn't me.
I'm surprised you didn't note that I shouldn't begin sentences with prepositions, or my improper use of the word "even".
What, I don't get a "70% Funny" like the original poster?
No, because your post isn't funny. It's just a bunch of nitpicking in what I can only assume is an attempt at irony. The gist of my post is that nitpicking over grammar is pedantic. You nitpicked my grammar. That's not funny, it's missing the point. It would have been ironic if I had been stating that grammar was important while making those mistakes.
We can mock the poor but we can't make light of someone who has not mastered his native language?
Oh shit, I failed the authoritative "Permission-Denied English Mastery Test". Now how will I get into grad-school?
For discussion: have you ever visited a casino (especially towards the first of the month)?
nope.
How do we solve the problem of getting the elderly off of Social Security?
I'll let you know after I master my native language. I'm not sure I have the grammar to attempt such a feat.
hmmm, ask a stupid rhetorical question and... well... I'll go back to being a smart-ass
I drew that implication, using your reasoning as the premise, as a joke to make fun of you. My thinking went like this:
Does that help answer your question? I wasn't too far of with my assumptions, was I?
You make fun of welfare recipients yet you can't spell "its."
That's right! Before we even approach the problem of getting people off of welfare, we need to correct the problem of people occasionally mistakenly using "its" instead of "it's"; for that is the real problem facing America!
spell-checked to avoid the pedantic nit-pickings of spelling/grammar-nazis
Lottery
:))
english - noun
def 1. A tax on people who suck at math.
(I admit, stolen from a bumpersticker, but I think it's funny
actually I was making sarcastic fun of the pedantic ass who pointed out your spelling error...
Sorry, but your skills in spelling the word "competent" won't get you very far in this market. There just isn't as much of a demand for a professional "competent" speller as there used to be.
only 20 boxes of mac & cheese? I'm a college student and I sure as hell don't buy that kind of extravagant mac & cheese. Kroger regularly puts its "kroger brand" mac & cheese on sale for 25 cents a box!
Get a life
:) At least try not to be a troll.
I suppose I should answer in kind with arbitrary insults, so fuck you. Or maybe "get a dictionary"
and stop calling copywrite infringement "Piracy"
People know what I mean when I say piracy in respect to digital media. They know I'm talking about unauthorized copying. Are you telling me that I'm actually conveying a different message? If you thought I was trying to say "taking a copy and destroying the original" then you're in a small minority of fucking idiots who can't remove ambiguity from english.
You need to look at the flip-side of this, which is, it's not piracy, unless the original copy is gone.
Perhaps in your very narrow definition of the term. Maybe this is what the term meant 50 years ago, but not anymore. The only meaning words have is that which the listener assigns them. Just about everyone who read "piracy" in my original post knew exactly what type of events I was describing.
Hell, even websters dictionary agrees with me, read the 3rd definition.
Main Entry: piracy
Pronunciation: 'pI-r&-sE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -cies
Etymology: Medieval Latin piratia, from Late Greek peirateia, from Greek peiratEs pirate
Date: 1537
1 : an act of robbery on the high seas; also : an act resembling such robbery
2 : robbery on the high seas
3 : the unauthorized use of another's production, invention, or conception especially in infringement of a copyright
gee whiz, pa! Words have more than one definition!
So, you only underline my point in my previous post. We don't need idiotic, leap-before-you-look zealots who makes anyone supporting fair-use look like a bunch of assholes. You're like the hippies of the anti-war movment. There's a difference between ranting and raving and actually presenting reasoned arguments. That goes for slashdot as well as your own personal thinking. I believe that we will have no legitimacy in the fight for fair-use unless we stick to well-reasoned arguments, and not pull this I-can't-even-read-a-dictionary bullshit, for nearly no reason at all.
John Cage totally has Paul Simon beat in the 'sound of silence' game. His song, 4'33", IS silence!
Ever since I started college, my grandmother never fails to cut out the dave barry column and send it to me
And if this were digital media, it would most likely be ILLEGAL under the DMCA or other such bassackwards legislation.
Actually, his grandmother gave up her original copy. Perhaps if she made a photocopy of the column and sent it, it would be analagous.
Fair use is only under attack because people abuse it. If there was mass photocopying of newspapers, there might become a corporate-lobbying stink about it. With digital media, piracy has become rampant. I agree that fair use rights are necessary, but I dispute your claim that this granny-clipping-newspaper-ads situation is at all simmilar to our current fair-use of digital media troubles. Please don't take this personally, but I feel that these knee-jerk reactions are really contributing to getting us nowhere on this front and sapping our argument of legitamacy.
(heh, just kidding, I'm not dave berry, but otherwise, rock on wil).
Yeah, otherwise you might spell your last name correctly.
I agree, but security is one thing. I think actively spying on someone is different. Our standard for how much we're going to respect a human being's privacy is different depending on whether that human being is inside of the U.S. or not. Trust is one thing, but we're the aggressors in this case, so I think it might be different. Or perhaps you're right, you do have a good point. I think it's more that I tend to ignore the "state" issue all-together. It has become my knee-jerk reaction to do so ever since nationalism exploded post 9/11.
In most of the world we call different standards for different classifications "different standards".
Not double standards.
Uh... not in my "most of the world". Not in Webster's Dictionary's "most of the world" either:
One group would be americans, another group would be foreigners. Double means you have two specific standards and the contradiction is when you purport them to be general.
How is it any different from correcting or offering a dissenting opinion?
:)
Because you can get fired from your job for saying the "Un-PC" statement.
What kind of "Un-PC" statement can you get fired for, exactly? Any? Be careful how you classify things. I highly doubt you could get fired for somethign like this trail of tears analogy, I assume what you ARE talking about is sexual harrasment or calling your co-worker a nigger or something like that. In which case, you obviously lack the ability to imagine yourself in someone elses position. The reason people don't want assholes harrasing female co-workers is because it's very hard for someone to be productive when they are belittled constantly by someone historically handed a dominant position. You think it doesn't still happen today? If so, you obviously have never faced consequences of this shit, but it dosen't mean others don't. There's a difference between "being PC" and making someone's life hell. It's the difference between being an ass and harassment.
With Political Correctness, you are no more free than the citizens of Communist Russia. here you couldn't speak your mind because you might end up in prison. Here, it's a slightly different story. You can't speak your mind (or even make a mistake in speech) without being crucified by society
We're not talking about cencership laws here, actually, the right to give your opinion!!! If you're not even allowed to feel offended then we're MUCH worse off then communist russia! Slightly different than prison? I hear people saying "un-pc" stuff all the time and nothing ever happens to them. There's a difference between not being PC and threatening or harassing someone.
As for the "mistake in a speech getting you cruicified", I must assume you're speaking of our friend Trent Lott. I bet you think I applauded what happened after his slip about how all of our "problems" would have been solved by having a dixie-crat president during the push for civil-rights? Actually, I thought it was blown out of proportion, but jesus, what kind of standard do you expect for the SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE?!?!! Your image does matter there. This isn't getting fired from your job or some other bullshit you mentioned. It's "not getting promoted to one of the most powerful positions in the country", and it was the republicans that pulled him out (mostly because he was a big liability anyway, this was just a good excuse)
Can anyone tell me how all this shit got to the rediculous level it is at right now? We have some froppish, underfed, vegetarian, neo-leftist leech telling the people of America which words are appropriate and which ones aren't! It is 100% pure, unadulturated bullshit, and you all know it.
Who exactly are you talking to? You just made about 80 ridiculous assumptions about me. I probably hate hippies even more than you do since people so often lump me together with those zealotous megolomaniacs.
All that aside, PC speech doesn't really fit into things of a really sensitive nature. It takes a lot of balls and insensitivity to make jokes about the holocaust, mostly because it just wasn't funny. The Trail of Tears was also a very serious matter, and thus should only be used when referring to the actual event.
I agree 100%
Now, persuasive speech promotes the use of extremes, but that's where common sense comes into play. If there's a guy who doesn't have enough sense not to name a computer configuration article after an event that stands for unjust death, an informing of the seriousness is in order.
Still agreeing
It is inappropriate, however, to censor him, axe the article, or socially crucify him.
hmm? I said that? I hope you're just adding in a point and not accusing me of this, cause that's basically the opposite of what I was trying to say.
Some people are just stupid
That's always a truth!
Yeah, I said it's BS to complain about criticizing an opion, which makes it perfectly ok for me to do so. No hypocrisy there.
However, why does everyone have to be sensitive to everything that might offend anyone?
I don't know about all situations, but some assholes sailing over to your country and making you march to your death doesn't seem that comparable to the hassle of setting up open-office. So why is mentioning the significance of the trail of tears a bad thing? At worst, someone gets educated.
I find the political correctness thing is now as bad as censorship
How is it any different from correcting or offering a dissenting opinion? People are allowed to voice their opinion about things, even about what speech they find offensive. By your logic, critique is censorship just because people will be afraid of being critiqued and therefore not speak. That's BS. You're responsible for the things you say, whether you like it or not.
I'm sure one day some PC guy will come along and ask us not to use C because controllers written in C were used in some bomber aircrafts (or something like that)
Well then that PC guy is a moron and we can all laugh at him (allong with any cowards who actually bend to his will). It's a far cry from pointing out a comparison between installing OSS and mass-murder. Don't oversimplyfy political correctness. You're just as bad as the "PC freaks" you malign.
I kinda agree with you about opensource games, at least, open-source games that tons of people are working on. A large group seems to suck all the creativity out of a game, but why are you bashing Parsec so soon? They JUST made their game opensource today. It hasn't failed yet. I'm kind of skeptical, but I'm willing to give it a chance. Hell, I'm considering joining the project.
Who Owns Your Digital Media?
Obviously the artists who make it
That's funny, I seem to remember them, of their own free will, selling me a copy of their work and then taking my money.
You're talking about intellectual property rights, not fair use rights. Big difference